Manage the Personality to Motivate the Employee

Manage the Personality to Motivate the Employee

Personalities are the sum of possibilities in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. As personality is how we react and interact, it proves to reason that it shapes one’s behavior as well. It is the job of a manager to provide the most effective workplace and productive employees, good managers align business goals to an employee’s strengths and weaknesses, skills and abilities – all of which are impacted by the employee’s personality. If aligned effectively, the product is highly effective employees and business results. According to a recently Gallup survey, 64% of all people hate their jobs. If you, as a manager, were to put the right people in the right job and gave them the right goals for their position, I can guarantee their work attitude, productivity and drive would improve.

Management is difficult, in large, due to differing personalities in the workplace. There is no one “silver bullet” to manage a group effectively. One must have a personalized management plan for each individual and each team in order to get the best productivity.

To find the correct fit and managing style for an individual, one must be able to: evaluate an employee’s personality type (both primary and secondary), to hire the right employees, put the employee’s in the right job, and set the right goals and objectives. When aligned correctly, the group will learn, grow, expand and, most of all, produce. Based on Hippocrates’ “four temperaments” medical theory for human personality traits and William Schultz’s “five temperaments” personality models, one can identify and analyze basic personality types. For the sake of simplicity I will simply call them by their Layman names: Type A, Type B, Type C, Type D and Type E personalities.

Type A: Most well known and researched personality types. These are the people who are very driven, independent and analytical. They are seen as workaholics, visionaries and entrepreneurs, who are always looking for the next opportunity: ·   Traits: loyalty, persistence, leadership, entrepreneur, decision-maker, independent, visionary, big picture, opinionated, self-starter, constant learner, realistic, multi-task

Type B: The seeming counterpart to Type A, a Type B personality is filled with energy and emotion. These are ones who need excitement, action, change, and interaction. They are often very talkative, outgoing, creative, and spontaneous. ·  Traits: Energy, impatient, outgoing, talkative, people person, optimistic, enthusiastic, spontaneous, desire to be liked, social, persistent, excitable, networker.

Type C: A true opposite to Type B, the Type C personality is a very serious or dry personality whom is very detailed-oriented, analytical, factual and a perfectionist. They tend to be very deep, need structure and consistency, are systematic and patient. ·   Traits: Detailed, analytical, factual, consistent, persistent, perfectionist, structured, steady, low keyed, reliable.

Type D: This personality is largely categorized as “happy go lucky”. This personality is largely content, takes things in stride, has a good sense of humor, works at their own pace and is low key. ·  Traits: Focused on present, learner, low key, compassionate, all-purpose, non-competitive, content, little responsibility, pleasant.

Nearly everyone is a mix of personalities A through D. Normally people are not a single personality type, but have a dominating (primary) and secondary personality type in most business environments. There is also the possibility that a person may also have a tertiary personality type outside of work, which dominates their social interactions. An individual tends to act like the primary traits during most work environments, but may revert to a secondary trait on occasion during complimentary or diversionary actions.

There is also a fifth personality type, not described above – this is Type E.  Type E is an amalgamation of Types A, B, C, and D in equal parts, which does not show a main preference to any specific personality. According to William Schultz, this is a rare personality type as it is only found in about 0.2% of the population. These personalities tend to mimic the personality of those in which they are with at the moment, having great amounts of energy and make people feel comfortable. Type E traits show all personality traits in addition to having the traits of being: intelligent, bored easily, energetic and inconsistent.

Managing Personalities and Individuals:

In order to properly manage an individual, you must be cognizant of their primary and secondary personalities and manage to the strengths and driving factor of each individual. Without effectively management: attitudes can turn sour, turnover occurs, teams fall apart and relationships - internally and externally - are affected. Identifying driving motives allows plans and goals to be determined more effectively.

Motivating Drivers

Type A: Money, Challenge, Freedom, Independence

Type B: Recognition, Excitement, Travel

Type C: Challenge, Money, Recognition, Position

Type D: Titles, Recognition, Awards, Security

Type E: Varies – Combination of Above.

Utilizing the motivating drivers of a personality creates value and efficacy in the employee as their strengths are being employed. Using the motivating drivers in different ways will create a sense of continual motivation and drive an employee. For example, you can create recognition for a Type C personality in many ways through: public awards, through personal thanks, a note or email of gratitude, praise while in the company of a director, and more, each of which will effectively motivate the Type C person. Creating a constantly changing motivation environment ensures that the motivating driver is continually effective. For Type E personalities, as they are very unique, would depend on the personality the Type E is exhibiting, where the motivator must align with the personality being expressed to prove effective.

Managing Groups:

Managing individuals is the art of identification, analysis and trial and error, but putting together all individuals and personalities effectively to run effective teams is more difficult. Group-based work is largely what companies have shifted to and having a team work effectively is paramount in today’s economy. Aligning personalities to their specific function can start with hiring (which I will touch on), but should start with complimenting current staffing.

Creating a highly effective team is learned from experimentation and perfected by good management knowledge. For instance, if you are to manage a marketing department, which includes all personality types, you can align personalities with the work type and personality drivers. You could have type A and type C personality types working on strategic launches, new business acquisitions, and expanding corporate accounts. You can have type B’s working on product launches, voice of customer’s (VOC) and new product launches. And you can have your type D personalities working on pricing analysis and market research. What you are aligning is the nature of the work, with the nature and driver of the personality.

Effective team management is finding and placing the perfect person on the right job and giving them what they need to move the business in the right direction. As a large part of job satisfaction is relied heavily upon management, it is management’s duty to find ways to work this effectively. Changing roles and responsibilities within a group will most likely be necessary and sometimes can even include movements within different divisions in order to put the right people in the right place. The key is to find that fit by working with each individual and forming that ideal, effective team.

While separating work may be effective, it must be noted that certain personalities do not typically mix, as type A and D types do not mix due to driving factors, and in most cases type B and C or type B and D, do not work effectively either. Type E personalities are unpredictable and will need to be motivated as a mixture of the personalities, but as they are generally accepted and can relate to each personality, they tend to work with nearly all team dynamics.

Hiring the Personality:

Moving employees around should be a first step in aligning teams, as firing and hiring is a long, tedious, time consuming and costly option, but when creating or expanding a team, hiring the right person is necessary. If hiring is necessary, aligning the position to specific traits, types and groups, which align to a personality type, helps create a winning strategy for the end goal of a productive employee and highly effective team. This analysis must be done while creating the job description and requirements. For example, if you are looking for someone to do a very redundant task, you would look more for a Type D personality, as the personality type is more effective in this role, given job security. Conversely, if you are looking for someone to lead a new strategic project, you would look for more of a Type A and C personality, which would be diligent, detail-oriented and analytical in creating the best outcome for the project, given that more opportunities would be available once the project is complete.

It is also important to align employees to the existing management or create a system by which this interaction is effective. Essentially, the worker and person to whom they report to must be compatible. This means that there has to be a managing structure in which the two employees can work in harmony without creating controversy or having adverse outcomes. The manager either must be willing to part differences or create a reporting structure in which both are effectively communicating and working towards business objectives. For instance, a Type C manager might not work well with a Type B employee, since the manager does not value general conversation, does not like having to constantly be guiding and does not like having to being updated by the Type B employee, all which is needed to create an effective Type B employee. This can be mitigated through job and reporting structure, where the Type B employee: can give and receive updates through email, interacts with a variety of people, and  has short, directed update meetings. If you notice, in order for the employee to be most effective, the manager must be willing to create the environment, goals and alignment in which make the employee most effective to meet the business need. This also speaks to hiring practices, as this must be kept in mind to ease any future tensions between the employee and hiring manager.

Upon identifying and managing personalities, it provides a structure for a productive team. This management style assumes that employees are competent and willing to move around in order to create the best business outcome. This is the next stage in employee and team management, to create the productive employee through aligning employee, manager and business objectives.

-thePonderingNick